iOS (known as the iPhone™ Operating System) is a mobile operating system from Apple Inc. The iOS operating system was originally developed for the iPhone™ device. It has since been extended to other Apple devices such as the iPod™ touch device and the iPad™ tablet.
Within the iOS operating system, there is no secure way to protect a credential or a private key, for example, a private key in a RSA (Rivest, Shamir and Adleman) based public-key cryptography system such as PKI (Public Key Infrastructure). The iOS operating system includes a container called a “keychain” for storing passwords and the like. While the iOS operating system provides password protection (i.e. utilizing the Keychain container) and limited file encryption, the security of an iOS based system is vulnerable to attack. Once an iOS based device is compromised then any user passwords and credentials, such as RSA private keys, are also compromised.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improvement in the art.